Earthquake Predictions
P.26 Predictions by Photos and Images
- August12, 2001 -
The 6.7 Northridge earthquake (34.215N, 118.538W, 18.4 km) at 4:31 a.m. of January 17, 1994 was supposed to be an unpredictable example. Some seismologists depicted it as "The best recorded earthquake in U S history", and asked, "Were they anomalous or a warning of things to come?"(1) Whereas, our answer is affirmative. The photograph of the Northridge earthquake cloud by Zhonghao Shou is the best evidence for a warning of a large impending earthquake.
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At 7:15 a.m. January 8, a sword-shaped cloud like a launching rocket appeared in the northwest sky of Pasadena (34.138 N, 118.143 W) suddenly. It moved toward the northeast direction quickly, and disappeared at 7:50 a.m. Shou photographed it with landmark from the southeast corner of Chester Avenue and Green Street, Pasadena, Southern California at 7:30 a.m.
Shou was sure that an earthquake of magnitude stronger than 6 would attack the northwest area with a distance in100 km from Pasadena and within 25 days. However, he could not write a prediction in English then because when he was young there was no English in all Chinese schools before1972. Therefore, he depended on his daughter Wenying, a Ph. D. student at Caltech, to translate his Chinese prediction.
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Wenying was very busy, but she did the work, and sent it to the U. S. Geological Survey on January 15, Saturday. Unfortunately, there was nobody in the office until 9:00 a.m. January 17th , Monday, which was out of Shou's thinking because there is someone in the seismic
office of his hometown, Hang-Zhou (30N, 120E), the capital of Zhe-Jiang Province, China, at any time even though there is no earthquake in its history. He thinks that there is a big difference between "No warning" and a warning out off the official hours of the USGS.
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Being the only one predicting the earthquake with a scientific way, and experiencing its panic, Shou felt his duty to devote his remaining life to earthquake prediction. He changed his initial plan not to go back China to be hired as a technical adviser or to make new patents, but to learn English and develop his prediction model.
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After learning English hard, Shou could read and write in English. He searched literatures from the Geological Library of Caltech in 1997. There were some interesting references. One reported, "A coseismic discharge increase of 60 liters/second was recorded in Santa Paula Creek, 55 km WNW of the epicenter" (2). Another reported, "The 400 oC isotherm, which correlates with the base of seismicity over most of the San Andreas fault system, should lie at a depth of approximately 18 km" (3). The other reported, "Aquifer fluid-pressure response to the 1994 Northridge earthquake (distance 313km)... 29 min after the earthquake ...showed a step increase in fluid pressure 1.85 X104 m (equivalent head of water). Subsequent hourly measurements showed an exponential decay of the fluid-pressure shift that persisted for several months"(4). All above messages are consistent with the Northridge earthquake cloud.
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In the early1998, Shou looked into satellite images from the Internet to obtain more data about the Northridge earthquake cloud, but nothing was reserved, which was a real pity. However, he predicted the 6.1 Afghanistan earthquake on February 4, 1998 to both the USGS and the L. A. Times on January 5, 1998 with satellite images successfully. In addition, a meteorologist from UCLA, whose field is special clouds, admitted that the cloud in the photograph was not a weather cloud since it looked like a launching rocket. Thus, to study how the Northridge earthquake cloud formed should be more meaningful than to ask "Were they anomalous or a warning of things to come?"
In 1999, Shou proposed his earthquake model and his earthquake cloud model in his article < Earthquake Cloud, a reliable precursor >. He also found a new phenomenon called geothermal eruption, a sister of earthquake clouds.
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Now, let's return to the Northridge earthquake cloud. The photograph contains landmark, so it will be able to review the cloud if one takes the photograph with a camera, goes to the southeast corner of Chester and Green, and adjusts the landmark in the photograph with the real landmark by the small view window of a camera. It should be very interesting to feel the elapsed event.
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References
1. Heaton, T. , Wald, D. - Strong ground motions from the Northridge earthquake; were they anomalous or a warning of things to come?, Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union (November 5, 1994)
2. Quilty, E. G. , Danskin, W. , Farrar, C. D. , Galloway, Devin L. , Hamlin, S. N. , Roeloffs, Ev - Hydrologic effects of the 17 January 1994 Northridge earthquake, Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union (November 5, 1994)
3. Williams, C. F. , Moses, T. H., Jr. , Grubb, F. V. - Thermal studies in the vicinity of the Northridge earthquake, Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union (November 5, 1994)
4. Galloway, Devin L. , Laczniak, Randell , Reiner, Steve , Unger, Randall , Roeloffs, Evelyn A. $ - Sustained aquifer fluid-pressure changes in Ash Meadows, Nevada, in response to the Northridge earthquake, Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union (November 5, 1994)
